1. Field of Invention
The present invention relates to manufacturing fields of semiconductor devices, liquid crystal devices and other elemental devices including stacked thin film layers. The present invention also relates to fields of high-density packages and more to a mask forming method to form a pattern using liquid material for patterning in the vicinity of atmospheric pressure, without requiring a reduced-pressure environment when manufacturing devices. Moreover, the present invention relates to a semiconductor device manufactured by the mask forming method.
2. Description of Related Art
In the related art, a wiring pattern is formed over elements, after the elements are formed on the surface of a wafer substrate, in manufacturing a semiconductor device.
FIG. 15 and FIG. 16 show a process of related art patterning. When wiring is formed, for example, on the surface of a semiconductor wafer 1 shown in FIG. 15(a), a wiring layer 2 is formed by a plasma CVD method on the surface of the semiconductor wafer 1 where an insulating layer not shown in the figures, is formed, as shown in FIG. 15(b). The wiring layer 2 may be formed by sputtering.
After the wiring layer 2 is formed over the semiconductor wafer 1, as described above, the upper surface of the layer for wiring 2 is coated with photoresist so as to form a resist layer. Subsequently, the semiconductor wafer with the resist layer is exposed to light and photo-etched, such that a patterned resist layer 3 shown in FIG. 15(c) is formed.
Furthermore, the semiconductor wafer 1 is a dry etched, as shown in FIG. 16(a), and the wiring layer 2 is etched using the resist layer 3 as a mask, which is shown in FIG. 16(b). After the wiring layer 2 is left only under the resist layer 3, a solvent removes the resist layer 3 located over the wiring layer 2.
The above process allows a wiring pattern 4 to be formed on the surface of the semiconductor wafer 1.
However, the above manufacturing process and a semiconductor device manufactured by the process cause the following problems.
Specifically, since most of the related art process steps are performed in a vacuum (reduced-pressure environment), vacuum-processing equipment is essential for the above manufacturing process steps. The vacuum-processing equipment consumes a considerable amount of energy including energy for fundamental units to process surrounding exhaust air and cooling water, when performing the vacuum process. The consumed energy undesirably corresponds to 60% or more of the energy required for the entire manufacturing process.
The following constituent elements of a vacuum-processing equipment can be considered as factors for increases in consumed energy. Such constituent elements include a chamber load lock to transport a work from an atmospheric pressure environment to a vacuum condition, a plurality of dry pumps or turbopumps to evacuate a processing chamber, footprint enlarged in association with pluralized chambers to enhance throughput, the resulting expansion of clean room area, and increased fundamental facilities to maintain these constituent elements.
Although, in the related art, film formation has been performed by sputtering or CVD under reduced pressure, it is being advanced to develop a method to form a film using liquid material for patterning under atmospheric pressure in light of the above problems.
Further, in the related art process, a material layer for patterning, formed on the entire surface of a member to be processed, is etched so as to form a pattern. However, this etching undesirably consumes a considerable amount of energy.